Afghan trav­els 400km un­der lorry

AN Afghan mi­grant trav­elled 400 kilo­me­tres (250 miles) along an Ital­ian high­way strapped by leather belts to the bot­tom of a lorry, po­lice said.

The man was ar­rested af­ter other mo­torists on the Naples-Rome stretch of the A1 mo­tor­way caught sight of him sus­pended from the makeshift har­ness and alerted lo­cal po­lice.

The Bul­gar­ian driv­ers of the lorry, who were on a trip from Turkey to Spain, said they had been un­aware of the stow­away and were al­lowed to con­tinue their jour­ney on Au­gust 23.

In an in­ter­view with Sky TG24, the Afghan man said he had paid 900 eu­ros (US$1017) to a traf­ficker, who at­tached him to the lorry on a ferry from Greece, where he had spent six months in a mi­grant camp, to the Ital­ian port of Brin­disi.

He said his 22 hours un­der the lorry were tough but not un­bear­able as he was well se­cured.

“I have been through much more dan­ger­ous things in Afghanistan than this jour­ney,” he said.